Seed Grants 2025
Call for Proposals
Goals
Inspired by the Yale Task Force on AI’s survey of AI work across campus last year, the Office of the Provost offers seed grants to foster discipline-spanning work on, with, and about AI technologies. The goals of the seed grant program are:
- To promote innovation and thought leadership in artificial intelligence; and
- To foster interdisciplinary collaborations at Yale and beyond.
Eligibility
Interdisciplinary teams consisting of two or more faculty can propose projects. All teams must be led by a Yale faculty or staff member who is eligible to serve as a Principal Investigator (PI) for external grants. Teams can include any university community member. We encourage proposals from all disciplines at Yale. We encourage proposals that explore collaborations with New Haven, and those that harness the power of Yale’s centers, institutes, libraries, and staff as research partners. Junior faculty members are especially encouraged to apply.
Selection Criteria:
- Innovation – How does this project seek to discover something new about AI?
- Intellectual or Artistic Merit – What does this proposal do to advance the fields and disciplines in which you are engaging?
- Impact – How might this project contribute to solving a problem, improving lives, etc.?
- Credentials of the team to complete the project – How is your team qualified to do this work?
- Interdisciplinarity – How will your team bring together different disciplinary methods or perspectives to do this work?
- Viability – Can the project be completed in the amount of time with the proposed budget?
Proposal Categories
Research Projects - up to $100,000
These grants are intended for interdisciplinary research projects in the early stages of development that are not yet qualified for external funding. Successful completion of the project should position the research team to be more competitive for future funding.
Workshop Proposals - up to $20,000
Successful proposals forward interdisciplinary team development with projects like workshops and symposia. Workshop proposals should have a clearly defined goal like field formation, research exchanges, project planning, skill building, or development of communities of practice. Workshops projects in creative fields such as the fine arts or performance arts are welcome to propose innovative workshop formats.
Materials Required
- Proposal abstract – 150-250 words direct entry
- Proposal narrative – file upload
- Research proposals 5-page limit
- Workshop proposals 3-page limit
- CV Principal Investigator – file upload
- Team member names, departments, titles, direct entry
- CVs team members – file upload (collate into one file please)
- Team narrative – 250-word direct entry
- Budget narrative and budget – file upload 1-3 page limit
- Project Timeline – file upload – 1-2 page limit
Funding Guidelines
Funding requests must comply with the Appropriate Use of University Research Funds policy. Funding may cover a range of activities including but not limited to:
- Personnel: Salary and fringe for post-docs and research assistants, as appropriate, but not faculty; stipend and up to 50% tuition for graduate students (please note that this funding cannot be used toward the Graduate Student Tuition Matching Program); undergraduate compensation for hourly work.
- Project or Research Supplies or Services: Data collection and analysis; supplies; software; small instrumentation; syllabus development; dissemination of findings (e.g., symposia, publication fees, policy briefs, curricular materials).
- Travel: Travel directly related to the proposed project or research.
- Other: Items required for the project or research that do not fit in the above categories. Example: consulting fees
- Not supported: Please note, general office supplies, attendance at external conferences, and indirect costs will not be supported under these grants. Yale faculty salaries are not supported under these grants.
Dates and Deadlines
- Submission Deadline: Friday, May 30, 2025
- Notification Date: Monday, June 23, 2025
- Dates of Work: 12 or 18 month periods (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026 OR July 1, 2025 – December 30, 2026)
- Reporting: (scheduled according to timelines of grants)
Reporting Expectations
- Participation in Exchange Event and one-pager progress report
- Summary Report (1 month after project end date)
- Participation in AI at Yale Symposium 2026 or 2027
- Participation in longitudinal surveys (all team members)
Contact
Connie Steel, PhD, Program Manager AI Initiatives, Office of the Provost, connie.steel@yale.edu